Editing Pynchon?

[Chris Broderick]

I can say that I didn't think either GR or AtD were tightly disciplined novels on my first reading of them.  I still think there are things about GR that are not tightly disciplined or "part of a larger structure".  I think the same can be said for AtD.  Maybe on subsequent readings I'll end up agreeing with you.  Maybe you'll read it again and see a larger structure.  I just don't think, based on my reading of it, that I can say either way yet.

Then again, Pynchon himself has claimed that there are parts of GR that even he doesn't understand, so if there's a discipline to that, it's obviously not the author's.

 Chris Broderick
www.myspace.com/christophermichaelbroderick


"A good laugh is the best pesticide."
-Vladimir Nabokov



----- Original Message ----
From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
To: Chris Broderick <elsuperfantastico at yahoo.com>
Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Friday, August 7, 2009 9:40:11 AM
Subject: Re: Editing Pynchon?

Categorizing Pynchon as a "picaresque novelist" seems to me an excuse
for unlimited self-indulgence at the expense of a good novel.  It's
possible to be picaresque and produce a disciplined novel.  I know
some people think GR is not tightly disciplined.  I completely
disagree.

On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 11:20 AM, Chris
Broderick<elsuperfantastico at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> What is clear about Pynchon is that he is a picaresque novelist, rather than a narrative storyteller, or a plumber of psychological depths.  He's more willing to digress for any number of reasons, serious or frivolous ("for DeMille fur henchmen can't be rowing"?), which is seen by some as anathema in the modern novel.  To expect otherwise means that you are barking up the wrong trouser leg.